With great reluctance, Ownergy Plc resolved to cease trading in April 2012
The company had been founded to assist people to install equipment to benefit from the Feed-In Tariffs and the Renewable Heat Incentive.
Regulatory uncertainty - Feed-In Tariffs
In the 2 years after the FITs were introduced in April 2010, the government initiated:
- Three unscheduled rounds of cuts to the tariffs
- Three changes to the underlying legislation; and
- Five consultations on modifications to the scheme
Regulatory uncertainty - Renewable Heat Incentive
In the same two years:
- The timetable for the introduction of the RHI was delayed four times;
- In the 6 months after the non-domestic scheme was eventually introduced only 20 projects were registered; 95% of applications have been returned by the administrators; and
- The domestic scheme has still not been introduced
Market confidence
With changes of this magnitude and frequency, customers and investors lose confidence in the entire mechanism.
... and Ownergy lost confidence that, when it offered a proposition to customers the promised statutory support would still be available when the systems were installed.
